The wind was heavy.Too heavy for the sky to carry.It pressed against the village like a weight of silence.
Kean was twelve.
He didn't speak much anymore.
His mother's body lay in the shrine.Alive, yet still.Three years since the coma.Three years since her voice disappeared.And three years since Kean had truly smiled.
He still brought her flowers.
Still talked to her.
Still waited.
But that day was different.
The air outside was shaking.
Storms? No.
It was something else.
Something coming.
At the shrine gate,the High Priest stood —a man of soft robes and hard eyes.He never liked Kean.
Few did.
He watched Kean walk in with flowers in his hand.
"You again?" the priest said."She cannot see your gifts, cursed child."
Kean said nothing.He simply walked past.
His mother lay in the temple bed,still as stone,yet beautiful like dusk.
He placed the small flower on her palm.
The priest scoffed behind him.
"She should have died.The council agreed — the boy's existence caused this.She's just… lingering."
Kean turned.Eyes calm. Empty.
"Don't."
The priest walked forward.
"What don't? The truth?You bring her weeds every week.And pray to what? That she'll open her eyes?Her soul's already gone."
He spat on the floor beside the bed.
"Even if she woke up — she'd be ashamed of you."
Kean stepped forward.
"Please… don't say that."
"You think you're special? You're a curse.Even your father left before you were born—"
Crack.
Something inside Kean snapped.
The wind outside froze.The candlelight inside bent inward.The shadows flickered — and then stopped moving.
The priest took a step back.His words got stuck in his throat.
Kean's eyes… had changed.
The whites of his eyes burned faint blue.His irises were now rings —glowing, ancient, flickering like a dying star.
And in the center:a thin vertical slit.
Not human.
Not devil.
Something forgotten.
The statue in the corner cracked.The wooden floor beneath Kean's feet hissed as smoke rose from his soles.
The priest fell backward.
"W-what are you—?"
The shrine doors slammed shut.The walls shimmered with symbols from the Hidden Path —the same from the ruin.
Kean wasn't moving.His rage was.
He stepped forward.
The priest crawled back, begging.
"I didn't mean—! The council—!"
"You…dared to speak about my mother…like she's not listening?"
His voice was deeper.Like there were two voices inside him.
The air around Kean shimmered — blue heatwaves dancing.
Then—
the shrine cracked open from the back.
A blast of blue flame erupted behind Kean,burning silently like a ghost fire.
It didn't consume.It whispered.
It remembered.
Visions flooded Kean's head — not his.
Memories of:
A war in a skyless realm
A woman crying as her eyes turned to ash
A child… glowing like a star…
And a name screamed through smoke:"Kean, NO!"
He fell to his knees, clutching his head.
The priest fled.
Kean gasped, eyes wide, aura glowing.
The flames vanished as fast as they had appeared.
The shrine returned to silence.
Only the flowers remained —still perfectly resting in his mother's palm.
She stirred.
For the first time in years,her finger twitched.
Eyes still closed, but her lips parted.
And a whisper came out, so soft…it might've been a dream.
"Kean…"
He looked up.
Tears ran down his glowing cheeks.
He didn't smile.
Just nodded.
As if… some part of him knew this moment was written.
That night, the Council of Nine felt it.
A ripple.
An awakening.
And far beyond the Realms,a shadow with eyes like burning coal whispered:
"So… the First Eye opens.""The boy remembers… a spark."